Tokyo 2020 is now firmly in our rearview mirror, and I for one will be sad to be deprived of the opportunity to wake up at 4AM to passionately cheer on someone I’ve never heard of in an event I know nothing about as they go for Gold. The heyday of amateurism in the Olympics may be long  gone, but it’s never been better for the amateur fan, with 24/7, on-demand, coverage, unprecedented access to the athletes via social media and remote working offering the opportunity to watch the games on a second screen without worrying about one’s boss noticing (not that I would ever engage in such an irresponsible practice, in case my Supervisor is reading this…).

To indulge both my post-Olympics melancholy and my addiction to sports trivia, I’ve trawled the internet to find some interest factoids related to the Summer Games and present them below for your mild enjoyment:

Staging the Olympics

• Due to COVID, we had to wait five years after the Rio Olympics to see the Olympic torch being lit again, rather than the usual four. Is this the longest interval between consecutive games? Not even close: The Olympics took an eight year hiatus between Stockholm 1912 and Antwerp 1920, and sports fans had to wait 12 whole years for London 1948 after Berlin 1936; the 1916, 1940 and 1944 were all cancelled due to the World Wars. Twelve years is nothing, though, compared to the 1503 year gap between the last recorded ancient Olympics, held under Theodosius I in 393, and the first modern Olympics in 1896.
• Befitting its status as one of the world’s great cities, London has hosted the modern Olympics more than any other city, with 3 stagings (1908, 1948, 2012). The British capital is set to be joined on 3 by the next two Olympic hosts, Paris (1900, 1924, 2024) and Los Angeles (1932, 1984, 2028)
• The saying goes, “If you don’t ask, you don’t get”. However, to the chagrin of Detroit, USA and Budapest, Hungary, if you ask, you sometimes still don’t get. The two cities have applied to host the games 7 and 6 times, respectively, and been overlooked each time. The most unsuccessful applications to host the games? Rome, with 8. At least the Romans can console themselves with nostalgia-laden memories of the 1960 Olympics, though.
• Staging an Olympics is not simply a matter of having an appropriately sized athletics track and finding someone willing to light a huge bonfire; it’s an immensely expensive endeavour involving substantial alterations to the city infrastructure and constructing new venues for dozens of sports. The 2008 Beijing Olympics cost an eye-watering $44 BILLION, making it the most expensive summer Olympics to date. At least the Bird’s Nest stadium (pictured) was absolutely iconic, though. Perhaps the most financially disastrous modern Olympics was Montreal 1976, which came in at a cool 720% over-budget and left the city paying off the costs for another 3 decades. Oof.
• Picture the scene: You’re in charge of the Melbourne 1956 organising committee and looking forward to hosting a packed Olympic schedule, including several equestrian events. Then someone reminds you that Australia has strict animal quarantine rules and that you won’t be able to let the horses in. The solution? Host the equestrian events in Stockholm, 5 months before the games, of course!

Olympic Events

• Some events are inextricably linked with the Olympics. It’s impossible to imagine a games without, say, the 100M or the Marathon (and indeed they have been a feature of every modern games). On the other hand, some sports have made less of an impact and been consigned to the dustbin of history: Between 1900 and 1920 there was a Tug-of-War competition and until 1936 you could win a Gold Medal in Polo.
• At Tokyo 2020, there was a total of 339 separate events across 50 sports, up from 306 events at Rio 2016. The 33 new events is the largest increase between consecutive games since Antwerp 1920
• If someone ever tells you you don’t have what it takes to be an Olympic Gold Medallist, they don’t know what they’re talking about. That’s because  José de Amézola and Francisco Villota stormed to Gold in Basque pelota in Paris 1900 without having to play against a single opponent – originally two teams signed up for the event, but with one of them withdrawing in advance of the competition, the Spaniards were inexplicably awarded Gold. Unsurprisingly Basque pelota never again featured as an official event.
• It’s one thing getting to the top. Staying there for any period of time is another. Staying at the top for 4 DECADES is a feat that beggars belief. That’s why we should all be in awe of the Canadian, Ian Millar, who made his Olympic bow in the Equestrian event at Munich 1972 and was still going when London 2012 came around, only missing Moscow 1980 .

Winners and Losers

• The IOC might well say that it is not the point of the Olympics to anoint a single country as the ‘champion’ of the Olympics; it’s why they refuse to clarify whether the number of Gold medals or the total number of medals is the one which counts. That’s all well and good, but the USA has won more medals and more Gold medals than the next three countries combined, having topped the Gold Medal tally on 18 separate occasions, so it’s pretty clear who the Gold medallists in Medal Acquisition are.
• One of the biggest challenges in the early Olympics was actually getting to the country hosting the event, leading to some fairly lopsided medal tables. At St Louis 1904, the Americans scooped 239 of the 288 medals up for grabs, comfortably surpassing the combined efforts of all the other countries involved.
• Sticking with the theme of American dominance for now, the most successful Olympian of all time is indisputably Michael Phelps, who helped himself to a total of 23 Swimming Gold medals between Athens 2004 and Rio 2016, more than double the tally amassed by anyone else. That might sound impressive, and indeed it is, but one has to question whether it was absolutely necessary to hold all of the events which Phelps won – why not have a 150m sprint in athletics in addition to the 100m and 200m? What about 125m as well?
• At present, there are 68 National Olympic Committees (including the Refugee Olympic Team) which have never won an Olympic medal. Monaco has sent athletes to an Olympics a record 21 times without any of them reaching the podium – One might have thought they would be strong contenders in the Yachting…
• He might have returned home without a medal, but the athlete who probably won the most admirers in Sydney 2000 was Eric Moussambani of Equatorial Guinea, who miraculously qualified for the 100m freestyle final despite never having set foot in an Olympic sized pool before the Games.
• Given the glory associated with scooping an Olympic Gold, the athletes generally don’t need much coaxing to give their best efforts. However, the Badminton event at London 2012 was shrouded in controversy after eight competitors appeared to be attempting to deliberately lose matches in the Round Robin stage in order to secure a more favourable path to the final. Despite protestations that they were still trying their best to win the overall event, all parties were tossed out of the competition for bringing the sport into disrepute.

And on that bright note, I’ll leave it there – at least we only have to wait three more years until Paris 2024!